U.S. Pat. No. 5,199,884 discloses a blind matable miniature connector for interconnecting circuits between parallel circuit boards. The connector in this patent includes contacts placed on close center lines such as on the order 0.5 mm (0.020 inches) for high density interconnection. Spring design of the contacts, and the housings require a minimum height of about 5 mm (0.20 inches), which means that the boards to be connected can be no closer than 5 mm (0.20 inches) apart.
With the increased miniaturization of electronic equipment, such as small portable computers and the like it is desirable to have connectors that will allow circuit boards to be placed at lower stack heights on the order of 3.0 mm and 4.0 mm (0.118 inches to 0.157 inches). It is further desirable that the low profile connector contacts also provide for high density interconnections.